Polls Page Element
Filed under:
polls
The Polls page element is one of the new features we’ve added to Blogger in draft today. With this new page element, you can add a poll to your blog’s sidebar that your readers can vote in. Add as many answer choices as you like, and even select a date that you’d like the poll to close on.
Here’s a quick video of putting the polls widget into action:
We’d greatly appreciate your feedback on this feature and the other features on Blogger in draft. Leave your thoughts in the comments!
All new features on Blogger in draft are works in progress. We’ve got some ideas on how to improve this widget — for example, we’re working on making its style integrate better with the rest of your sidebar — but we want to hear your opinions as well.
Technical notes:
All new features on Blogger in draft are works in progress. We’ve got some ideas on how to improve this widget — for example, we’re working on making its style integrate better with the rest of your sidebar — but we want to hear your opinions as well.
Technical notes:
- You’ll need to be using one of Blogger’s new Layouts templates to add a poll. Still using a Classic template? Learn how to upgrade. (Caveat: it make take a bit of work if you’ve customized your template a lot.)
- Polls are unscientific.
170 comments:
Any chance of adding polls to individual posts, also?
I like Eli's idea, but think the polls are great nonetheless - mine's working alright.
Just tried the poll element; no matter which way i enter date and time for poll closure, i can't get it to save. any idea why?
I just found something strange in Firefox the poll is beautifully integrated in the themes used , where as in IE it is not , its background in in white ,is that normal for now ??
Is there a possibility to show older polls (say ... That have been closed)
Would really love to have the ability to post a poll in a Post itself. I typically run 5-6 polls and using the sidebar is not convenient.
I'm losing my eyesight sorry! But, where do I go to get the download or configure the poll to add to my blog? Thanks!
@M D G
Go to Templates, click on Add a Page Element, find Poll and click on the ADD TO BLOG button right under it. The rest should be really straightforward... Watch the video again if you need help.
I have one of the new layouts and for some reason when I go to add a new page element, I don't see the option to add a "Poll". why could that be?
Very cool. I've already added one to one of my blogs. I've been wanting something like this because most third party poll sites have popups. I'm really excited by the new features I've been seeing lately. Thanks.
To add polls in post, just use the "iframe" tag, like this:
<iframe height='xxx' name='poll-widget-xxxxxxxxx' src='http://www.google.com/reviews/polls/display/-xxxxxxxxx/blogger_template/run_app?purl=http%3A%2F%2Fxxxxx.blogspot.com%2F'
style='border:none; width:100%'></iframe>
Wow! I was just thinking about adding polls today...weird.
I'm having the same problem as Lalo Machiste. Can't see the polls option at all.
This is great! I don't like having comments open on my posts, so I was just thinking it would be great to be able to add a specific poll.
It works just fine for me so far.
I have no option to add a poll to my blog...followed the directions, but it isn't there! any ideas about this??
I have the same problem as Velvet Brick and lalo machiste... !?
make sure you access your blog via this address
http://draft.blogger.com/home
Or the new features will not be available.
Thanks Blogger in Draft!! I was waiting for this feature to be introduced. It certainly ads interactivity to our blogs.
But how come the poll layout is so primitive? It does not follow the sidebar theme selected.
The layout is primitive both in my IE and Firefox (ver 2.0.0.4).
Thanks again!
I uploaded the poll with no problems once I scrolled down to see how to find the "poll" option. This is a great tool - thank you!
I went to test out my poll and got a "Cannot process request" error.
Am I doing something wrong?
The polls feature sounds great, but it is not an option within my page elements. I go into my layout and click on page element, but that particular option is not listed. Does anybody have an idea? I am using one of the newer layouts.
I tried out the poll feature with a
will you buy an iPhone poll.
I would also like to see the ability to put a poll in the post as an option. Another thing I think would be useful is a way to adjust the poll at least for five minutes after posting. This way you could adjust the wording, bad spelling or the formating of the poll. Any other formating options for the poll would be nice as well.
Overall this is a great new feature. Good work!
Brent
I have had several people e-mail saying that the site wouldn't let them take my poll. Any idea as to why? Another idea that I would like to see is an option to write in a choice of what to vote on. So, if the choices that I set up don't include their views, they could write in what they would choose. I hope this feedback helps...
Thanks to Memento for highlighting the fact that you have to be looked into draft.blogger.com
This should have been part of the instructions.
i'll definitely be using polls for one of my blogs
but what i really need is the ability to schedule my posts ahead of time with future dated posts that appear as scheduled
Polls are definitely welcome. So I won't have to use third party service providers who need a link to their site. However agree with DarkUFO. Would like the ability to put polls inside posts as well.
Great idea to have polls. Like eli, I also wonder if we will be able to add polls to individual posts?
also, like talia mania, I'd also like to be able to "schedule my posts ahead of time with future dated posts that appear as scheduled."
A title/header must be added on the top of the widget, like poll of the week.
Very nice! However, I would like it to look more like this (fonts are meant to be similar to Minima)
POLL
What is your...?
( ) Answer A
( ) Answer B
(*) Answer C
( ) Answer D
This is rather similar to Indiscernible's idea.
Hi all!
eli, et al.: Thanks for the feature request about polls in posts. In the meantime, I think 免洗湯匙's hack should work (copy the <iframe> source).
zeinobia: We're looking in to fixing the IE white background issue.
orchid: Matching the blog's style better is something we're working on. Expect the poll to look better before we publish this feature.
david winter: Is the "Cannot process requests" still happening?
brent evans: You can edit the poll up until the first person votes on it. So make sure to check spelling before you cast your vote.
debi: Can you post your blog URL where you're having the problems? What browsers do your readers use? Also, thanks for the "custom response" feature request!
indiscernible and chelseafan528: Until the styles are improved, you may be able to fake the look you want by adding a Text page element right above the Poll, and putting a title on it.
Thank you all for your responses!
i can't do it! i don't know ... could u help me? please .... thanks!!!
umm hi.
i was trying to add a poll onto my blog and i cant find it. did you guys remove it or something? or is there a problem with my computer?
Great new feature! Here's how I would improve it:
1. An "Other" field, where the poll taker can add his own answer.
2. A sidebar title, to match my other sidebar items.
3. Polls in posts, of course.
3. Embed codes made available, so I can add my poll into HTML markup. For example, if I use HTML tables in a post, I would like to insert my poll into one column of the table. This would save white space on my page.
Thanks for giving us polls! More new features, please! Like forms!!! Stores with shopping carts!
-- paulklenk.us
I can not save my poll. the error message pointing on valid date or time error. Any idea what's going on here? tested both IE and FF
Just posted my first poll :) What a great and user-frendly feature. More, more, more....
Btw., after the poll period expires and I put up a new questionaire, will there be a chance to view the old one ?
I would try using a poll. But the instructions require flash. I avoid flash so I don't have to look at all that advertising that sites pump into your browser with flash. How about just plain English instructions?
Hi, was looking to add the poll but cannot find the feature anywhere on the list of "add page element" any suggestions?
This poll feature is nice. It tipped the scales for me in recommending Blogger over other blogging tools.
Aha! the problem of Polls not accepting date and time for closing might have been me entering 08/07/07 for example. Entering 8/7/07 worked. Simple. Like me. And to you folks still not seeing the Polls feature - are you logged into http://draft.blogger.com ? If you're logged in at http://www.blogger.com you won't see it.
It would be nice if we could edit the color of the title and answers.
Seems to work fine- Thanks! When the problem of the white box in IE is fixed, I guess we will we have to download as a new page element - in other words, if you fix this say tomorrow, my poll will still show in a white box in IE - right?
Actually it a cool gaget. I'll fix mine now.
the poll option doesnt show up in the pop-up window! after i click "add a page element"... theres no button which says "POLL"... help pls
Looks like it has a problem with diacritic, see.
The "Poll" option isn't there for me. Already checked, I don't need to upgrade anything.
Would love to have polls on my blog. When can we start using them in Beta though?
It doesn't work with Unicode languages...
I tried everything, it's fine in English but doesn't work in some Unicode languages (ie; Farsi, Arabic, etc)
polls in individual posts would be awesome. i hope you can do it and allow some cool editing options!
Sign me up! I'd love to play with polls.
How to?
I think it's a great idea. My suggestions are:
1. make the answers sortable, you know, move to bottom like in the links element. I needed to reorder my answers and it was not easy.
2. I'd like a little more space to work with when writing my questions and answers. Mine will probably not be one word answers and single line questions.
3. Ability to title my poll.
4. html ability in the question.
Great idea.
jorge
....where can I find poll add in. I verified and looks like I have the latest platform, however, I cannot find the polls element...confused :0
i cant add it - it does not appear as an option.
why don't i have a "polls" option in my "add page elements" window even if i'm not using the classic version? i want to have a poll in my blog but it seems like technical problems are stopping me to do so :(
I dont have "polls" as an add on option either...
In order to put additional options, I had to save after each new option. Can that be changed?
I want to follow 免洗湯匙's advice and use the iframe tag to embed my poll in a post, but i am a little less technically advanced (merely a geek-in-training). is this a way to embed a poll that is also existing in the sidebar? where can i find the xxxxxx information that i assume i need to insert into the tag? any help would be appreciated.
Great feature!
What exactly is the difference between "http://draft.blogger.com" and "http://www.blogger.com"?
Are there any other differences between logging in at the two sites? Is one more reliable, etc?
Lovely! I love it. Blogger team, U rock. Thnx 4 putting in gr8 new features for us 2 enjoy
Like machine, the poll is not supported Unicode in IE (but work fine in FF). Will it be added soon ? And white background is still in IE :(.
I like something such as Poll Rotation, it means two or more polls exist simultaneously. But each time someone visits my blog, only one of those polls will be shown. If s/he refreshes the broswer, a new poll will be replaced an old one. And it is cycled.
Just a simple question/suggestion: it would be extremely useful to have an option in the poll to display the users and their answers. For instance to know which people want to participate in an event...
Okay, I get error 404 whenever I try to add a poll (I am using Firefox 2.0.0.4 and IE6)
Also, it would be better to have individual polls for individual posts...
Nice feature.
It'd be great if there can be polls for individual posts too. :)
I am having a problem- sometimes when I click add a page element the POLL option does not appear. It did once but then it went away.
I am getting the same error as raj using Firefox 2.0.0.4. Looks like a great feature but just can't use it at the moment.
I have upgraded my template but the Polls option is not appearing in the Page Elements menu. Any ideas?
Hi TC hope this solves your problem.
When you log into your blogger dashboard it must be using this URL
http://draft.blogger.com/home
Although this looks like your normal dashboard you'll notice the blogger logo is blue rather than orange. Everything should now work exactly the same except you get all the 'extras' associated with draft Bogger.
I'm having the same problem as lalo machiste, I fixed the "Layout" problem but poll still isn't there?!?
Same Aaron here having the same problem as l.m.:
dray_uk's tip DOES NOT WORK. I tried it like 10 times.
Nice. Seems easier to use than comment moderation. Lebanese brings up a good point about archiving polls. we should try and make archiving possible.
it's weird when i got to my page elements, i do not see the poll page elements. any idea why? i'm already using the new format for blogging.
Is it possible to create an "archive of old Polls"?
When a poll has finished, i would like to save the poll in a blog post or similar.
It's quite easy to archive old polls. Follow the method below:
1. Look at your finished poll, and note the votes and percentages.
2. Copy this into your post.
3. Tag it Poll Results and there you are.
Another way to archive a poll is take a screen shot and post the poll results as an image.
Hello:
This time it worked! But, if one person votes, the other can't anymore. It only accepts one vote from everybody.
A little more work on this Poll Element will also help bloggers to create QUIZ . Just ad an option to give CORRECT answer and the same poll element can also serve as QUIZ creation page element.
taxquery
there is no polls page element in my page element. y?
In my page element lists I cannot find the polls element. Is it a problem with my template??
Anytime I try to add extra poll element, more than 5 initial, they are all lost silently... Not nice...
In regards to the date/saving issue, it does work, but you have to enter the date in the "correct" format. Make sure there's a space between the AM or PM, and be sure AM or PM is capitalized. Ex: 11:15 AM or 3:00 PM.
I experimented a little, and found out that the issue is with the time format.
Hope this helps somebody!
Polls is not listed in my add page element - and i am using a new template. What do I do?
To repeat what a few people have said here, in order to have polls available you need to be logged into draft.blogger.com, not blogger.com!
I wish the polls conformed more to my template style. Mine, for example, displays black text where there should be a light grey.
I went to the layout editor, and clicked on on "Ad a page element."
There was no Poll button
hello again:
i just tried it. it suddenly works now!:-) anyway, my friend voted on it and know i cannot make my other friend vote. it will only take one vote total. can u fix it?
I am HAAPPYY!!
I added my first new poll!
http://dinorider.blogspot.com
I'd like to know if we could edit the colors of polls, though
.. the text in my poll seems kind of left aligned
:S
Love love love the whole Poll thing. I just noticed though that while the question can be lengthy, without making the poll window into a slider.... the poll 'choices' cannot--and that is kind of annoying. Could the 'Poll Choices' be modified to also be in multi line format like the 'Poll Questions'?
I used to use the external code to set up a poll. But Now its great :)
WOW! I like this feature. It ads a lot of interactivity, and despite my site's new, I see people using it already.
How about, though, an option to have all poll elements in other languages, ie, spanish.
It looks a little silly to have a poll in spanish, and then the button to 'Vote'. :)
Thanks again!
I love the poll, and I'm trying to get it to work on my site: http://sowal.blogspot.com. HOWEVER, it only records one vote! I've had several people vote on my poll, and they only see one vote as well. That is, no matter how many people vote, we're only seeing one vote. Am I doing something wrong?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
mike@30A.com
I have the update templates, but when I go to add a the poll as a new page element, it is not listed in the options. Is this draft limited to just a few people?
Hey,polls will be really a great thing but eventhough I have the "Layout" dashboard and therefore the upgraded templates,I don't have such an option
No Poll option with my updated template too!
Warning to everyone who can't get a poll: Above the post box, there's a very interesting message. It says: Don't see the feature everyone's talking about? Make sure you've logged in to draft.blogger.com. Learn more.
Flatly put, log into draft.blogger.com, NOT www.blogger.com
Give number of votes so far an option to hide.
My expired poll went a funny colour overnight "white" at Bird Blog, so moved to bottom of sidebar. I would have preferred it to remain the site's background colour after expiring - might have to remove it now (after a week so visitors don't miss the results).
I'm unable to add a poll to my sidebar. It's not even presenting the option to me in the GUI. Guess I'll stick with what I've got for the moment till ya'll resolve this. I don't see anyway to update my blog template so I presume I'm already working with the most recent version. [shrug]
I just tried adding a poll. It added fine but when I try and VOTE it says "Cannot process request". The "Show Results" works even though it shows 0 results since I can't vote. Anyone know of a fix?
Said by others but well worth repeating; I'm no longer an HTML junkie, so widgets are great, but many are too limiting. (Ex: txt color, bg color on poll)
** ABSOLUTELY A MUST (if you can fit it in) Polls for each post, for those people that hate to write comments but you still want to get a sampling of their thoughts or demographics
** Thanks for the color choices on the header bar (silver works well with my site), but it'd be great to have some customization capability there too. Sorry fellow bloggers, but I want to eliminate "Next Blog"!
** Each hierarchical archive should have capability to have default set to expand all, collapse all zippy. Example, I want my latest two months to be in expand mode on open, not just the latest one month.
** And finally, while I have attempted to add amd follow the well-presented steps to have my posts appear with about six lines of text, followed by a link that says..."Read More Here"...it is a pain in the ass, and I haven't been successful. Call it a user problem without a doubt, a problem between the keyboard and the chair! But I like simplicity these days.
Thanks developers and fellow bloggers for your posts and suggestions.
- b
Why is my poll field white now? I'm using the black minima template and now the poll is all white. The first poll I ran didn't turn white. I'm confused. It looks really out of place.
I added my poll a week ago... no problems, looked an worked great. Then a couple days later the font changed and no longer matches the font used in the rest of my blog. What's up?
^^ Same thing happened to me. The poll has switched to a small serif font, instead of blending with my template, as it did up until last night.
What Templates do the polls work on? I'm using Minima Black and when I go to page elements, the poll element does not show up.
e-Mail at PKRTCN@gmail.com
Signed in under Blogger Draft and sitll dont get the Poll option...And i'm using the new template...Anybody?
I dont have a poll option in my add a page element...am I doing something wrong??
After my first poll has finished, I can see that the polls page element is not available. Is this a bug?
my polls are not showing? is something wrong with the computer or the site?
My polls don't seem to be displaying correctly. The colors of the results screen have completely changed and they do not show up well on the background that I use in my sidebar. How can I fix the colors to change back to the old colors.
The display of the results of my poll is botched up.
Anyone suggest a fix to it please?
http://faithandhealthconnection.blogspot.com/
thanks!
it worked for me great. however, i'm in the same boat as zeinobia--the background for my poll is white and the text is too light to see it. how can i change the text? there isn't an option for it in fonts/colours when editing the template.
No white background anymore for my expired poll. Thanks for fixing and have readers wanting another poll soon - so they love the new feature!
Thanks for a nice feature!
Okay, So I finally added a poll to my bolg, then when I go look at my blog the page will not load correctly and goes to someother page that says it can not find my web page, as soon as I take the poll off my blog, the page loads fine...what's up??
The background color (sky blue) of the results column makes it impossible to see white text. I use a black background and white text.
Bad news...
Mmm - as of yesterday, 12 June, and Polls going Final, my Poll is suddenly not appearing correctly in IE7, Firefox, and even Safari for Windows (so therefore confirmed as multi-browser error).
The text of what the poll is about is being over-imposed by the actual current poll votes/results themselves, or the voting buttons in the case of those not yet voted viewing the site - that is, instead of appearing UNDER/BELOW the "Do you think that blah blah blah" the results are instead appearing over the top of them.
Is this to do with them going Final, as it's only today I notice this, and if so, how do I resolve, given that I can't edit a poll that already has votes cast...
I read about the Character Set issue for polls, but as far as I know I am using everything standard, default, and out the box in terms of it's template etc.
I found a slight problem with the polls control. I wanted to add more than the default number of options as answers, so I clicked "Add another answer" link. This added the new answer in the design window.
Go to the blog front end site, refresh and all answers are there except for the "extra" answer I added. I clicked to edit the poll. My extra answer has disappeared. I clicked to "Add another answer" again, then went back to the blog site and it now appeared.
I was excited to see the poll addition and put it up on my blog LGBT Rainbow Links lgbtboomers2.blogspot.com as having worked for CBS Broadcasting and been in news/sports reporting, I set up the poll to reflect an upcoming Democratic Presidential Debate on August 9 on the LOGO Channel regarding LGBT topics and issues. As it turns out this is a fluid event as participants are being added. What has happened regarding the poll, is I needed to add new participates to reflect all that are now (or maybe) involved with this historical event. But as it turns out, once someone has voted, the poll listing cannot be changed. While this may not be of interest to those who are using a poll to "play", my poll is serious in nature and reflects in what I do on LGBT Rainbow Links. You need to revamp the poll, so it can be changed even if there have already been votes. The only option I see is to delete the poll and start over with a new poll which would not be fair to anyone who has already voted. To not be able to edit an active poll would be to make it useless in "accurancy" where, in this instance, there are new participants or one could drop out. While some take these blogs as toys and idle ways to waste time, I take my work very seriously. I hope this does not fall on deaf ears. Sincerely, Lyndon Evans, Publisher LGBT Rainbow Links
I think you should also add polls which could be included in posts. That would be really nice.